Dear Editor,
It was a tremendous pleasure to have attended the graduation of the first batch of 110 pioneering students who took golf as a Physical Education Elective at C.S.E.C in Guyana’s history, achieving 100% pass rate with 88 Grades I’s and 22 Grades 2’s. Students came from Anna Regina, President’s College, Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, Rosignol, West Coast Berbice, Linden and other areas. This renewed interest in golf, both as an academic subject and physical exercise is due mainly to the initiative and perspicacity of Mr. Aleem Hussein, President, and Guyana Golf Association.
Happily, he and his group obtained the support of the Ministries of Education and Sports and Culture. To attend this function held at the Scouts’ ground on Woolford Avenue, was a vindication of the efforts of our early fighters for Independence and to break the chains of prejudice, which characterized our pre Independence period. I recall when many of us with melanin tried as we did, could not become members of the Georgetown Golf Club, for that reason, many who were neither Europeans or described as colony-whites developed a disdain for golf, and we were all ecstatic when that large portion of land, now known as the National Park was taken from the elite, and for the first time after 1964, was made available to ordinary Guyanese.
That giant step and success will however be meaningless, unless our Aboriginal People, Descendants of Slaves and Indentured Labourers hold hands together to ensure that a subtle but severe form of colonialism does not characterize the period ahead. Congratulations to the NexGen Golf Club and perhaps golf will earn us some of the glamour and glory we once had with cricket and boxing. Let us remind ourselves of the utility and relevance, today, of the words “Mens sana in corpore sano,” credited to the Roman Poet, Juvenal, which simply means a “healthy mind in a healthy body.”
Sincerely,
Hamilton Green
Elder
